- Published on
"Uncertainty is the Essential, Inevitable and All-Pervasive Companion" - acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas, 36" x 36" x 1.5". Ready to hang (back has been pre-wired for hanging). Available here and at Artfinder.
Control, apparently, is not the answer. People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to make art that is risky, subversive, complicated, iffy, suggestive or spontaneous. ART & FEAR
Wait. What? Control isn't the answer? Just kidding - we already knew that, right? I mean, we WISH we could control things into magnificence, but we know that approach is futile. And yet.
I still kid myself sometimes when I start a painting. "I'm going to paint THIS," I say to myself. And I sketch my idea, post an inspiration photo or whatever and set off to make it happen. Sometimes it does (kind of) but mostly the muse just runs amok with the paints and tickles me for thinking it was ever within my control. Which is what happened with this big piece, nearly a month in the making and containing at least three different paintings that the Universe determined were not gonna happen.
Control, apparently, is not the answer. People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to make art that is risky, subversive, complicated, iffy, suggestive or spontaneous. ART & FEAR
Wait. What? Control isn't the answer? Just kidding - we already knew that, right? I mean, we WISH we could control things into magnificence, but we know that approach is futile. And yet.
I still kid myself sometimes when I start a painting. "I'm going to paint THIS," I say to myself. And I sketch my idea, post an inspiration photo or whatever and set off to make it happen. Sometimes it does (kind of) but mostly the muse just runs amok with the paints and tickles me for thinking it was ever within my control. Which is what happened with this big piece, nearly a month in the making and containing at least three different paintings that the Universe determined were not gonna happen.
Uncertainty is the Essential, Inevitable and All-Pervasive Companion
Simply put, making art is chancy - it doesn't mix well with predictability. ART & FEAR
But this repeated experience of being tickled into submission by the muse has been, frankly, transformative. I really don't mind going with the flow anymore - in art or in life. I mean, I'd rather things went down one particular path or another of course, but I have learned to stop and expand my thoughts to include good things that just might happen even if I trip and fall down a perilous path and land with bloodied knees.
Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding. ART & FEAR
Based on my level of tolerance, I have now clearly found my inevitable and essential companion. He isn't exactly what I expected, and with a name like "Uncertainty", no wonder he was still single. :)
But this repeated experience of being tickled into submission by the muse has been, frankly, transformative. I really don't mind going with the flow anymore - in art or in life. I mean, I'd rather things went down one particular path or another of course, but I have learned to stop and expand my thoughts to include good things that just might happen even if I trip and fall down a perilous path and land with bloodied knees.
Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding. ART & FEAR
Based on my level of tolerance, I have now clearly found my inevitable and essential companion. He isn't exactly what I expected, and with a name like "Uncertainty", no wonder he was still single. :)
A glimpse into the twisted path of the painting:
2. The illusion of a strongly delineated 'horizon' that in fact is broken up and obscured in places. Uncontrolled, ya know?
3. The glimpses of past lives, especially the one on the left.
You are my go-with-the-flow hero, Jen!